FAA buried ValuJet report

EXAMINER NEWS SERVICES

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, November 23, 1996

MIAMI - The Federal Aviation Administration suppressed an internal report that urged a review of ValuJet three months before one of the low-cost carrier's jetscrashed in Florida's Everglades, an FAA manager has testified.

A stunned audience Friday heard testimony from FAA management that the agency was aware of serious problems with ValuJet's maintenance procedures but the information was deliberately kept secret from regional inspectors.

On the final day of a weeklong National Transportation Safety Board hearing into the crash, FAA manager John Tutora, who worked at the Washington Air Carrier Branch, said he had expressed serious concerns about ValuJet in February - three months before the disaster.

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Tutora said he had written a detailed report in which he concluded the airline was "ill" but his senior management told him to keep the findings

"confidential."

Tutora said he gave the report to his boss, Frederick Leonelli, manager of the FAA's aircraft maintenance division, on Feb. 14, but it apparently wasn't shared with other supervisors or regional staff in Atlanta, where ValuJet is based. Leonelli has since retired and has not been called to testify.

FAA officials also conceded for the first time that they ordered their investigation because Congress and the inspector general were carrying out their own inquiries into ValuJet's safety standards.

NTSB hearing Chairman John Goglia criticized Tutora for failing to follow up his report by ensuring that senior management had evaluated his recommendations.

"This smells. It really smells, when you have a report that was done in preparation for investigational hearings," Goglia said.

However, Tutora claimed he did not feel his position allowed him to take his report any further. Later, a senior FAA official, William White, said he had not even seen the report until after the crash.

White, FAA deputy director of flight standards, said the agency was understaffed and often unable to deal with its workload, in particular with the rapid expansion of ValuJet.

"Because of the astonishing growth that took place, the system failed," he said.&lt;